


Amino

by Saphistar



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Mass Effect - Freeform, Mass Effect 2, video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 22:32:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11091297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saphistar/pseuds/Saphistar
Summary: Sometimes it takes the memories of a near-death experience to realise that you're made for each other.(ME-2, Pre-Suicide Mission)





	Amino

The bottle was moulded from some type of reinforced plastic; hinting at the fact that Garrus hadn’t been lying when he’d told her he couldn’t afford anything better. Most wines were sold in much more elaborate containers.

A vigilante’s salary indeed.

The drink was quite obviously cheap just to look at, though with inexpensive booze one usually found themselves flat on their backs after just a few swigs. The thought tugged her mouth into a scowl, Shepard wasn’t much of a drinker and this stuff looked set to turn her guts into slurry.

She recalled the first time she’d tried asari honey mead. A treat for the troupe from her commanding officer one shore leave at the time back in the day when all she cared about was the line of duty. Social situations didn’t quite suit her well and shore leave was usually a time of boredom and crushing loneliness. Not the fondest of memories.

“Put’s hairs on your chest,” he’d told them. Though Shepard certainly didn’t recall any strange ‘hairs’ metaphorical or no, what she did remember about that evening was vague at best and the dregs of that memory were probably better left in whatever gutter she’d been discovered in after the fact.

Still, the stuff in this bottle didn’t look anything like the honey mead, (it didn’t particularly look like any drink she’d ever seen before) but it looked potent… perhaps even toxic. Light purple in colour and quite strangely viscous for what the commander knew as ‘wine’, it slopped around in the bottle like a weird thin treacle as she examined the packaging. Text was visible and very brightly coloured but the language it was written in was utterly undecipherable to Shepard who, as a human, had never learned how to read Turian.

Idly, she thought perhaps she should add that to her bucket list.

She continued to turn the bottle over in her hands only noticing her cabin guest had re-entered the living space when he cleared his throat.

“Problem?” was all Garrus asked casually, setting down two tall glasses onto the table between their seats.

Shepard winced while holding the bottle up somewhat gingerly, almost fearing his reaction to what she was about to say. Almost but not quite; some questions just needed to be asked.

“Can I even drink this?” she mused quietly, quickly noticing the ever so slight widening of Garrus’ bright eyes. It was clear at that moment that he hadn’t given his choice of poison for the evening much thought.

He took the bottle from her and eyed it over, mandibles twitching in what Shepard could only assume was slight annoyance before his shoulders slumped and his gaze flickered back to hers.

“Well … you can. But you’ll be very ill in the morning.”

“So, that’s really a big fat no, then?”

“Heh, yeah. I suppose I forgot you’re not Turian.”

She chuckled lightly at that. He hadn’t forgotten that they were different in such a blatantly obvious fashion. He just hadn’t had the thought process of “Shit, Shepard can’t have this because it might turn her insides to jam.” One would call that a simple force of habit. It went without saying that she appreciated the thought at all.

He’d tried and that was more than she could ask for from anyone.

But still, Garrus seemed embarrassed by the blunder given the way he awkwardly fumbled the bottle in his hands. The quicker that emotion was nipped in the bud the better for the pair of them.

“Don’t worry about it,” she whispered, a little closer to his face than she’d originally anticipated as she pushed herself from her seat. The glimmer in his eye as she passed him by was pleasant nonetheless and his coyness seemed to pass. The lingering gazes he gave her nowadays were a much welcome addition to their budding relationship. There was no better feeling than being desired even from afar.

“Had I offered to cook you a meal, I’d have given you steak and potatoes and expected you to like it,” Shepard teased making her way to the mini fridge in the office area. She heard him chuckle before he muttered, “I don’t know what that is…” from the other room.

With a broad smile, Shepard pulled an already opened bottle of chardonnay from little chiller and waltzed back into the living space, reclaiming her seat next to her turian date. Garrus wouldn’t be able to drink what she was bringing to the table, but at least now neither would have to go without.

“Exactly!” She set down the bottle on the table and flashed the sniper the smuggest look she had. “This is why, Vakarian, you should always have a plan B.” With that she sat back, crossing her legs and used a smooth motion of both hands to present the bottle to him like she’d just at that moment performed a magic trick.

Garrus hummed a chuckle and shook his head slowly as he reached for her bottle with a gloved hand. “I like your style, Shepard. Preparation is always your strong point,” he stated with an unmistakable undertone of a smile in his voice.

That was one thing she had noticed lately about Garrus Vakarian; the physical act of a smile from him wasn’t possible – not in the sense that humans knew smiles anyway. It seemed Turian facial expressions were determined purely through the eyes and the motion of their mandibles, but she could always hear the change of pitch in his sub-vocals.

She had wondered if she simply hadn’t noticed it before or he simply hadn’t ‘smiled’ for her until now. It was strange how she seemed able to see a grin that wasn’t really there merely by the way in which he spoke to her.

Turians were, indeed, a very noisy species to say the least. With a lack of visual representation of emotion, they expressed feelings through sound though for the most part these sounds were far out of a human’s hearing range. Shepard could only hear certain sounds Garrus made.

He clicked deep in his throat when he was concentrating, a soft rhythmic tapping sound reminiscent of a ticking clock. He made high pitched albeit quiet whistles if he was impressed by something.

One had to listen quite hard to hear them, however, and she’d never asked him about the noises he made with the fear of causing embarrassment due to her own ignorance. There was every chance he didn’t even realise he was doing it. The last thing she wanted to do was to offend anyone, let alone the guy she was trying to seduce.

It went without saying that she was still learning more about him with each snippet of time she could snatch with him and she found him utterly fascinating.

With both drinks poured, chardonnay for her and the gloopy purple… stuff… for him, they plucked their glasses from the table and clinked them together in a toast.

“To plan B,” Garrus purred with a tilt of his head.

Shepard’s smile widened as she lifted her glass in response, “Plan B,”

It was unclear how much time had passed since the bottles were opened, but inhibitions were down – if only a little - and the mood in the cabin had gone from ever so slightly awkward to the epitome of comfort. The wine helped, there was no doubt about that, but neither were completely inebriated and they’d soon grown bored of the acidic taste of dry alcohol.

Shepard couldn’t vouch for Garrus’ drink but she figured by the way only a single mandible would flare outwards each time he took a wary sip he wasn’t keen. It seemed each other’s company was far more satisfying than getting drunk.

They laughed at each other’s stupid jokes, poked light-hearted fun at members of the crew which, of course, included themselves and Shepard couldn’t quite recall the moment she had ended up in his lap. Garrus was definitely a lot more comfortable than the chair anyway and he didn’t seem to mind; had welcomed it in fact with an arm rested firmly across her shoulders.

“You did not get punched in the face by a Krogan, no way,” Shepard scoffed while she playfully poked Garrus in the side of his neck.

“I did! Straight up. Slugged me right in the jaw!” He proceeded to turn his head and point to the un-scarred side of his face.

She just laughed at him again, shaking her head, of course he was exaggerating. If Garrus was damn good at anything other than calibrating giant guns, it was telling tall tales.

“You tell the most vicious lies, Vakarian!” Shepard struggled to get her words out through the laughter at a story that, if she thought about it hard enough, was more stupid than it was funny though the two walked very closely together. She guessed he simply had a way with words. “You’d have no teeth left!”

There was a long pause while Garrus considered his answer until he eventually comically threw a hand in the air and confessed, “Alright, alright, I dodged, it was a glancing blow. Hurt like nothing else though. Krogans punch hard… even when they miss.”

More laughter erupted from her lungs, so much so Shepard struggled to breathe and her belly ached in the most satisfying way. She couldn’t quite remember the last time she’d laughed so hard or when she’d felt so free of burden.

It felt so good to just forget herself for a while.

Once the laughter had died down, a quiet settled over them, not uncomfortable, just a moment of calm as they sat there merely wrapped in one another’s presence. It was the motion of the turian’s thumb rubbing circles into her shoulder that prompted Shepard to lift her gaze to his.

He was just gazing back, the shadow of his brow not enough to quell the unusual sparkle of his bright azure eyes.

She’d said it to Liara once before; never, in a million years, would she have thought she would find comfort in the arms of a turian. And yet here she was, slouched in the very same chair as one, albeit one she knew very well, whom she trusted with her life.

There was no other place she would rather be, that much she did know.

She reached up and cupped his face running her thumb lightly over the shell of his carapace while she watched his eyes slip closed and lean into her touch.

It was strange, seeing Garrus Vakarian in such a light as she did now. He was ruthless, a rebel, a misfit among his own kind. His methods of justice were often brutal and unforgiving; he was dangerous without a doubt. And yet… he was soft, affectionate and vulnerable here in her cabin and lightly purring into her hand.

It was strange, and yet natural. It had become evident that very moment he’d shown up tonight, that sex wasn’t at the forefront of his mind. Originally that had been the end game; an evening of passion to whittle away the doubt; a distraction from the inevitable as the Omega 4 Relay rapidly approached. But in a matter of only a few words, Garrus had shown his true intent which coloured the entire evening a much deeper shade.

He was so desperately lonely and he was hurting. Garrus had - perhaps subconsciously - sought solace from a crippling pain Shepard knew only too well and he’d sought it from her. It went without saying that she was more than willing to give it to him, though she wasn’t entirely sure what it was.

His eyes opened eventually with a slight twitch of a single mandible beneath her palm and he gazed at her for what seemed like the longest time while she lay there against him and merely gazed back.

“I wish I could kiss you…” she uttered wistfully, her mouth tugging into a grim defeated smile.

Garrus seemed confused by the comment, the plates of his brow seemed to furrow as he turned his head ever so slightly away from her hand to look at her straight on with both eyes. They were so bright; looking at them was like gazing into a star. So many emotions swam inside them that Shepard was almost convinced she could see them all swirling in a vast sea of blue electric fire.

“Why don’t you?”

His voice derailed her train of thought and she was dragged from deep within those bright eyes and back into the room. His sub-vocals had changed she’d noticed, not into the ‘smile’ this time. They were much lower, deeper, an almost guttural sound she could almost feel rumbling in his thick chest. She’d never heard it before but it stirred something hot deep in her gut. She’d never felt like this about anyone before and it frightened her just to realise how so desperately she wanted it. How desperately she wanted him.

“Shepard…?”

She faltered again, and her eyed locked with his once more as she recalled the previous question.

He damn well knew she wasn’t talking about a simple peck on the cheek.

Gazing back to the table, to the glasses that held the dregs of two very different drinks she thought about giving him the long answer. That Mordin had warned her about the differences between them. That dextro-amino acids were potentially toxic to humans and could have devastating consequences. It was information they both already knew, and it made this whole liaison seem so pointlessly dangerous.

The idea of being Garrus’ star crossed lover did not sit well in her stomach.

What were they thinking…?

“I think you know why…” was all she said, removing her hand from his face with the intention of bringing this event to a close. Like a band-aid; rip it off quickly and the pain only lasts a little while.

That was until Garrus wrapped his fingers around her wrist, forcing her attention away from the table and back to him.

“Can you remember when this happened?” He spoke softly but that deep, guttural rumble of his sub-vocals remained, as he pressed her hand against the wrap still holding his terribly wounded face together.

He liked to talk about it quite a bit, not the incident, but rather the wound itself. It seemed to be a point of humour for him and even though Shepard quite often went along with it, she’d soon began to see the evidence of a tragic coping mechanism.

He mentioned it so much, made out Shepard had a fetish for scars, poked fun at himself… because it bothered him. It was obvious he was still in pain, she would often see him wince out in the field, test the mandible on that side, and more often than not he would subconsciously touch his face to gauge just how tender the healing flesh still was. Even so, he knew as well as anyone else how lucky he was to come away with nothing but a scar.

Still, Shepard didn’t understand the question but when she tried to gently pull her hand away with fear of hurting him his grip tightened. It was then that she noticed the sadness in his eyes. Within that electric ocean of emotions that was the only thing she could see, the hurt that she was beginning to reject him. It made her chest ache.

“Of course I remember,” she replied eventually, dropping her gaze to the space between them.

“And the blood… do you remember that?”

“Garrus…?”

“You touched it, I remember. You had it on your hands, your face, it was in your hair.” He released her hand and touched her face with his, rubbing a thumb over the skin of her cheek. Shepard couldn’t help herself but to let her eyes flutter closed and lean into his touch. When was the last time she was touched so tenderly? She couldn’t remember…

“When it touched your skin, did it burn?” He was whispering now. The sub-vocal was gone and all that was left was a single concentrated soft murmur as he drew her face closer to his.

And then it came, a rush from a blast like a supernova; a pathway to the past so fast she swore she could feel the force of it on her skin a force so damn strong she had to catch her breath.

The explosion, the realisation, the vile stench of smoke and charred meat, the blood. She remembered crawling through it, an ever-growing puddle of blue, it was everywhere. She remembered trying to stem the flow with her own hands without a second thought that his blood could harm her if it touched her. But mostly she remembered his screams of agony when they tried to move him. It was like nothing she’d ever heard before; so sharp and so piercing it turned her own blood to ice, it was soul shattering.

She thought he was going to die…

It was the memory of that very scream that brought her crashing back into his arms as though she’d just woken from a nightmare and the only thing she could feel were his arms around her and his breath on her cheek.

“ _When it touched your skin…_ ”

Shepard squeezed her eyes closed in an attempt to banish the memory back into the archives of her mind, a single tear rolling down her face in the process.

“ _…Did it burn?_ ”

The question reverberated in her mind as she tore it apart, pieced it back together and forced it to make sense, when suddenly it did. There had been blood on her face, thick cobalt streaks across the bridge of her nose and smeared into her hair when she’d attempted to push it out of her face. A shower had taken care of it and not a single thought was spared for the instance until right now. There was no reaction, no marks or burns that marred her skin like she had been warned would happen.

“No…” she answered eventually in little more than a whimper filling the space between them with her green eyed gaze. “… it didn’t burn.”

He hummed at her, his own eyes flicking between hers and her lips. Garrus had already known the answer to his own question. And he didn’t hesitate at that point to thumb away the stray tear that had betrayed the object of his affection sitting in his lap.

“Then you can kiss me … if you want to.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at creative writing for roughly about 5 years so I'm a little rusty. Already started a follow up because the good people on Tumblr demanded it. :)
> 
> It was something small to get me back into the swing of things. I may have overused the odd phrase or two and I may have repeated myself a little in certain aspects. I am okay with this and have kept it this way to document an improvement each time I post. 
> 
> Please let me know what you thought, but please be constructive with it ;)
> 
> Enjoy the fluff! Saph ~ x


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